I'm a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London, a writer here and there on this and that and strangely, one of the global experts on the metal scandium, one of the rare earths. An odd thing to be but someone does have to be such and in this flavour of our universe I am. I have written for The Times, Daily Telegraph, Express, Independent, City AM, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer and online for the ASI, IEA, Social Affairs Unit, Spectator, The Guardian, The Register and Techcentralstation. I've also ghosted pieces for several UK politicians in many of the UK papers, including the Daily Sport.

Apple's Find My iPad Is Not Electronic Trespass

I found this court case amusing. The finding is that Apple‘s “Find My iPad” app is not in fact electronic trespass. Not that many thought that it was in the first place:

A magistrate has ruled there was no “electronic trespass” in the case of a Canberra man who used an app to trigger an alarm on his allegedly stolen iPad after he tracked it down to another man’s house.

The unusual case involves the Find My iPad app, accusations of “amateur sleuthing” and a hotly-contest order for fingerprints.

The iPad “disappeared”, and the original owner did a GPS trace on it,. When he went to the address indicated he had a look through the window then instructed the iPad to set off an alarm so that he could check that it was in fact his. Then he called the police who found it in a safe in the garage.

So far the app seems to have worked as intended. The next thing was the, how to put this, interesting claim made by the defense lawyer:

Mr Edmonds had told the court the alleged victim physically trespassed on his client’s property by walking around the house and also trespassed electronically when he turned on the iPad alarm.

Thus the evidence had been unlawfully obtained and there was no case to answer. The judge made short shrift of this argument pointing out that any such “electronic trespassing” would mean that someone whose Wi Fi signal could be perceived next door was so trespassing.

Please do note that this case was in Australia and therefore might well not apply everywhere.

What interests me most about this story is the way that it shows the adaptability of the Common Law system. There was no need to convene the legislature to pass new laws about what would happen if someone used the new app. No need to involve the politicians or the lobbyists. The Common Law takes such new technologies entirely in its stride. A decent dose of common sense applied to previous case law and the underlying principles can thus be applied to the new situation. This sort of adaptability is one of the reasons that Hayek liked the Common Law system so much. Precisely because it could accommodate, adapt to, changing technology so simply and swiftly.

Indeed, Hayek and others have gone so far as to claim that this system of law is the jewel in the crown of what we call the “Anglo Saxon” economic order. Something that we mess with at our peril.

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